Look, John, Just Play Along
by Arkylie Killingstad
Summary: Elias invites some surprising people to join him in a night off—not that John is keen about letting his hair down.


_"Does it look like I play video games, Leon?"_

* * *

"You know, when I set this place up for you," Carter says, cautiously taking a seat at the table, "I didn't expect you to engage in massive security risks." Her eyes flick over at Tao, who's stuffing his mouth with Cheetos, looking energetically innocent.

"Well, you see, Leon and I have a little… arrangement," Elias says with a grin, folding his hands over the table. "Which is contingent on his ability to respect the need for discretion regarding the night's activities. I expect he could learn a lot from Ms. Morgan."

"I guess I'm not surprised that you know Zoe," Carter admits. Zoe has already toed off her high heels, and is relaxing with a glass of something bubbly.

"Oh, she's been quite helpful on a number of occasions," he says, and then, a little louder, "Won't you sit down, John? There's no dangers here tonight, and Anthony's keeping watch in case anything shows up to trouble us."

John remains standing by Finch, keeping the door in his sight.

After a moment, Elias sighs good-naturedly. "Suit yourself."

As Shaw returns to the table, her plate piled high with snacks, Carter's gaze settles on the one person she isn't familiar with: a slim young man with wide eyes and a scruffy goatee. Going strictly by her gut, she observes, "You aren't one of Elias's men."

An engaging smile lights up his face. "I'm Will. And no, although it's been quite exciting to get to know him. I've been in jail a few times, but that's about the extent of it."

Picking up on Finch's tension, Carter raises a brow.

"Young Will, here," Elias says fondly, "has been poking into things that have begun to poke back. So, for the moment, he's under my protection. As a favor to his dear Uncle Harold."

" _Uncle Harold_ ," Carter echoes, clipped. Finch winces, and Carter wonders if maybe she should've kept her curiosity to herself.

"Why are we even here?" John breaks in, petulantly.

Elias leans forward, eyes bright. "There's a storm brewing, John. Before long, we're all going to be caught up in it. I can't say how many of us are going to live to see the other side. So, tonight, my last night in the enviable security of this safe house, I offer you a rare chance to unwind. An evening in good company, with fine refreshments, most of them made by hand. And, if you'll indulge me, I've planned out an activity we can all partake in, with the specific goal of getting our minds off the normal set of worries for a few hours. I dare say most of us could use the distraction."

Sighing, Carter gives in, and bends to remove her own shoes. "I guess it's safe enough."

"I'm not so convinced," John counters.

Elias looks untroubled. "It's been several months, and no one seems to have tracked me down. Each of you came by a different route, at a different time, and Anthony was on the lookout for anyone following you. He's watching the door now, and the feeds from a few cameras strategically placed around the neighborhood. Nothing's going to take us off guard—and we've got a good exit strategy, so we can be out of here within minutes if need be.

"The Faraday shield keeps signals from getting out, so nobody here is going to call in trouble. Besides, there's no one at this table who would benefit more from causing a ruckus than from solidifying some social ties. I can't see what more I could do."

When John doesn't budge, Zoe huffs. "Oh, sit down, John. It's nice to have a day off now and then. Stop treating this like a job."

"Look," Shaw says through a mouthful, then takes a big sip from her glass and stops to swallow before she goes on. "There's enough fighters and guns in the room that we should be fine against any normal attacks." She starts ticking off points on her fingers. "We've got early warning, decent cover, we could hold out against a siege if need be, and we've got one of New York's finest at the table in case the cops start causing problems.

"Our annoying little _guest_ ," she continues, making Carter wonder about that one, "is well and truly trussed up, and roughly a third of the most dangerous people in the city are collectively in this room. Now, I don't much care if you spend the whole night glaring at us, but you can't be at your best in the field if you never get the chance to unwind, and this, tonight, seems like a prime opportunity to kick back and appreciate a truly astounding variety of food." Glancing at Elias, she shrugs. "I'm really just in it for the food."

Motioning expansively toward the spread on the side table, Elias grins again. "Do feel free to help yourself. I'm sure there'll be plenty left over." (Shaw has gotten up to refill her plate before he's stopped speaking.)

"Really, John," Elias continues, "if I were up to some nefarious plot, don't you think I'd have taken into account your reluctance to trust my good nature? Even Harold's getting something to eat. It would be exceedingly difficult to arrange for poison or sedation in sufficient quantities to get all of you without knowing what sort of things you would like to eat, and how much."

"You could've coated the plates," John counters. "Or the cups."

"Or I could have some substances wafting through the air right now, that Anthony and I were immune to because of a counter-agent we took earlier. Really, John, the paranoia is just paranoia at this point. I swear, on Anthony's life, that I have no ill intentions toward any of you tonight; I'm not trying to harm or capture you, or to put you off guard, or to keep you here so my agents can do things elsewhere in peace."

John's head jerks up at that one—evidently a possibility he hadn't yet considered. His eyes go a little wider, breath coming a little faster; he's on alert, not just about threats within the room but possible threats outside it. Carter is starting to feel sorry for him, unable to relax even in a setup like this.

Returning from the buffet, Finch sets his plate and glass on the table, and turns to John. "Mr. Reese," he says, "if Elias were trying to distract us, I doubt he'd take the added risk of bringing in Ms. Morgan and Mr. Tao. And, given our relationship over the past few months, I find it unlikely that he means us ill tonight. It's always possible that this is more than what it seems, but… at least for tonight, I am willing to trust his hospitality."

John's answering snort speaks volumes, but Finch simply shrugs, sits down, and attends to his meal.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, with everyone (except John) happily munching away, Will begins handing out papers, pencils, and pens… plus sets of weirdly shaped dice. Most of the guests look either confused or curious; Zoe looks interested, and Leon delighted.

"I've chosen a system that's fairly easy to get into," Elias says. "Even for those of you who've never played a tabletop before."

John blinks a bit, as if trying to make sense of those words.

"We're going to be role-playing?" Finch asks, frowning, as he lifts his papers and leafs through them.

"When the goal is to distract the mind from its current troubles, that takes a bit of mental effort. A game such as _Pathfinder_ is going to take enough concentration, from each of you, to accomplish the goal. So that is what I have chosen. And it all starts with character creation: Basic classes, basic races, core rulebook, nothing fancy. Let's begin."

* * *

Before long, they've paired off: one person who is at least quasi-familiar with the task, and one newbie. Elias has evidently coached Will in the basics, so Will is helping Carter while Tao tries to coach Shaw (not that she's letting him), and Finch has sought Elias's help in making the mental shift from some previous gaming system.

It takes some persuasion—mostly from Zoe—to get John to accept the idea of creating a character to play some sort of paper-based video game. He can't even recall the last time he's picked up a board game, or any sort of card game that isn't played with a normal deck, and this seems weirder than either one, even before you factor in eight-sided dice.

"There's a lot of possibilities," Zoe's saying, "so you need to narrow it down a bit. First off, do you want to play something that's similar to what you do in your normal life, or would you like to lose yourself in the sort of things you can't normally do?"

After a bit of discussion, that much gets settled: John's already overloaded, so they stick to what he knows. A human fighter who throws himself between danger and his friends.

"A tank," Zoe explains, "is the guy who takes damage so the rest of the team can survive. Sound like you?"

John sighs, and, at Zoe's instruction, rolls some dice to figure out just how strong, fast, and resilient he is. The numbers mean nothing to him, but Zoe seems impressed.

The terminology is slowly starting to fall into place, some obvious and some… not so much. "Alignment" means morality, or ethics (he's never grasped the distinction), which falls along two axes: _Good_ vs. _Evil_ , and _Lawful_ vs. _Chaotic_. Shaw, in particular, wants to stick to Chaotic Neutral, and gets annoyed when her first pick of "Monk" requires an alignment of Lawful; she grumbles and goes with a Barbarian instead. Most of the group seems to favor Neutral Good.

Other than human, the races are classic fantasy types that John has only a passing familiarity with: elf, dwarf, gnome, another small creature called a "halfling" (which Finch picks), and two half-human types: half-elf and half-orc. "Orc" is apparently a monster type; Leon goes for half-orc after trying to wheedle his way into some sort of angel, or "at least" a monkey-person. ("No supplements," Elias says firmly. "We've only got a few hours.")

Then there are classes. John's "Fighter" is easy enough to grasp: all the weapon types, good with armor, has a few combat tricks and all. Apparently "wizard" and "sorcerer" are the types with magic powers; Zoe goes for a Half-Elf Sorcerer.

"I'll be the face," she tells John, "which means that when we encounter other characters, I'm the one who talks with them and tries to persuade them to help us. Unless someone else can beat a 19 Charisma and the ability to _Charm Person_."

Carter decides on an Elf Ranger. When Elias raises an eyebrow and remarks that he'd half expected her to choose a Paladin, she snipes back, "Hey, we're doing this to _relax_."

When Finch chooses a Rogue, Will sighs and goes with Cleric. " _Somebody_ 's gotta keep the group alive." This doesn't make sense until Will and Elias start discussing spells; apparently Clerics have healing magic, and being a Dwarf means that he can resist poison better than most races.

Even traveling storytellers have powers: As a Bard, Leon can affect the whole group by _singing_ , which somehow makes them more effective in combat.

A whole hour has come and gone, and they aren't even ready to get started. John's starting to wonder if this _is_ the game, just spending all night making characters and comparing numbers. And he's starting to get a headache just trying to figure out which details to keep track of.

"Don't worry so much," Zoe soothes. "Just focus on your fighter, and the rest of it will fall into place as we play." She grabs one of the core rulebooks (Elias has provided three), flips through some pages, and lays it out in front of him. "Here, pick out some weapons."

John rubs his face and starts reading through a chart of numbers and notations as obscure as any tax code. Except, he's starting to wrap his head around the dice codes, at least. Dice means damage, and 1d6 means _one die with six sides_. Bigger numbers are better, and 2d6 is better than 1d12 because you can never roll lower than a two, and because the damage is more consistent. _Melee_ means hand-to-hand combat, and he can use martial weapons because fighters are trained. Okay. Some of this is coming together.

The biggest damage code for one-handed melee weapons is 1d8; John turns the eight-sided die over in his fingers, and then checks the two-handed melee weapons, which go up to 1d12 for the Greataxe—no, 2d6 for the Greatsword, which isn't as heavy but costs 50 gold instead of just 20. That's fine; he rolled 230 gold earlier, for starting cash.

He can't make sense of the other code—19-20/x2—but at least it's different from most of the rest of the column, so maybe it's better? Okay, weapon chosen.

As he's hunting through the armor chart, Zoe returns and glances at his sheet. "Nice choice," she says. "Though you can't get a breastplate now. Chain mail's almost as good; it'll just slow you down a bit. You need all the protection you can get, but you still want a little maneuverability."

John groans. "How did you even get started with this nonsense?"

She grins. "Oh, you pick up all sorts of things when you spend time at odd gatherings with the most influential people in the city. I can also swear in Klingon."

"What's Klingon?"

Laughing, she presses a kiss to his cheek. "We are gonna have to set you up with some movie nights or something, my culturally under-educated friend. That, or jump straight into the deep end by taking you to a few conventions."

* * *

Eventually, everyone has the basics written down, and then they're all looking to Elias, who's set up a little cardboard screen at the end of the table, keeping his own paperwork private.

"Well," he says, "I know that half of you are new to this, and it does feel like a missed opportunity not to resort to the classic you all meet in a tavern, but I thought I'd be a little more creative with this adventure." A grin spreads across his face, and he takes in a deep breath.

 _You're in a caravan, stopped on a snowy mountain pass. It's afternoon, and you're just setting out lunch when—_


End file.
